She Fogs Me Up
by Angel-of-the-silence
Summary: Written for waltzmatilda and fandom aid on LiveJournal. Alex reflects on living life in the moment and his relationship with Izzie after a bomb goes off at Seattle Grace. Post- It's The End of the World/ As We Know It  Season 2 Bomb episode


Living in the moment.

It seems like a great philosophy when the world is falling apart around you. When everything is going to hell in a hand basket, and you can't seem to get a bead on anything except what's right in front of you, you tend to grab on to anything tangible to keep your head above the flood. This is a hell of a lot easier said than done when men start flooding in wearing bullet-proof vests, shouting orders, and kicking you out of all of the action.

If anyone had deserved to be in the action today, it was me. I mean, seriously… I was the one who had figured out that the paramedic had her hand on a ticking bomb. I had to put up with the patient's wife screaming in my face for twenty minutes straight. Granted, I'd lost my cool just a little bit… but Burke wanted someone to shut her up. And if someone hadn't shut her up and figured out what the hell was going on…

I didn't want to think about that.

As much as I loathed some of my fellow interns, I couldn't come to terms with the fact that there wouldn't have been enough of them left to wipe off the walls if that round had gone off. I was glad, for the most part, that Izzie hadn't been anywhere near the OR this afternoon. It could just as easily have been her that ended up pulling the bomb out of that guy's chest.

She just cares too much… about all of the wrong things. So I screwed up with that nurse. Big deal. Did she ask me why?

Probably. But I don't always listen to her when she speaks. It's not a man thing, and it's not an asshole thing… mostly it's just that I get distracted by her. She turns me around, fogs my brain until I can't tell which way's up. Conversations with her can be a minefield, with inflection and subtext clouding the conversation until I'm not sure what we're actually talking about.

When she had asked if I wanted to stand there and talk metaphors, my brain had frozen for a moment. It's like every conversation we'd ever had flashed in front of me for that split second. All the times she'd gotten in my head with words like, "seriously," and, "us." Not to mention the conversations that led, inexplicably at times, to sex.

Well… almost sex, since I'd had some issues in that department. But give me a break, I'd had a lot of shit going on at the time. You don't want to tell your girlfriend that you flunked your boards. At least, I didn't. I hadn't wanted the sympathy. All sympathy had ever reminded me of was foster care and my siblings.

I had always tried to live in the present because of that, and when my brain caught up in that linen closet half a world away from Iowa, I'd dropped trow like my shorts were on fire.

I had fucked her wildly, completely, and with utter abandon, as if that had been the last physical contact either of us would ever have in this life. Or, for that matter, any life that might have come after it… since we'd been pretty convinced that we might die today.

For a single moment, the two of us were alone, with no fear, no embarrassment, and no words. I could still feel her skin against my fingers; soft, supple, and slick with sweat. Hours later, that memory and a few others, replayed in my mind. She was a contradiction.

Though she made me a better man, she also made me worse. Before I hadn't paid that much attention to how I affected others, preferring instead to look out for myself. Now, there are times that I can only see how I affect others, and sometimes I've hated her for that.

Izzie made me care in a world where caring was suicide. She dropped a bomb of reality on me, just as surely as those idiots with their bazooka had dropped a bomb on Seattle Grace. That she cared enough about Meredith and Cristina to worry about them actively and not passively, with an eye for their safety and not just her own. Even if she had used it as an excuse for some steamy, "oh God, oh God, we're all gonna die," sex.

When she'd disappeared, after leaving me holding the bag with the Chief and his wife, no less, I had just accepted that she was off to care way too much about something else. And when that bomb had gone off outside the OR, the explosion had rocked not only the hospital, but also my heart. In a very strange way.

I wasn't ready for Izzie to stop living. If the sex in the linen closet had been any indication (either time), things could be looking up for us. Death puts a real damper on sex… at least for most people.

George had caught up with me as I was heading out (my fault for not moving faster), and related a scene out of every man's fantasy: three hot chicks in the shower. Of course, O'Malley could suck the sexual heat out of anything… as he did in the locker room, relating the scene clinically. I had been grateful to know that Izzie was ok, and I suppose I was also glad the annoying twins were going to recover.

As I had driven home, I hadn't been able to get the image of Izzie in the shower with Meredith and Cristina out of my head. And not in a good way. I kept seeing them exactly as George had described, standing in the shower wearing every stitch of clothing they would in the OR, carefully washing the soot and blood off Meredith's scrubs and gown. Picking carefully around the glass in her hair and scalp.

I kept picturing Izzie, burned and bruised. It made me realize that living in the moment was pretty much over for me. After what had happened in that closet, I realized that I wanted Izzie around, and maybe for more than just sex. It confused and terrified me in a way that was exhilarating. Whoever advocated living in the moment was full of shit.

The anticipation is half the thrill.


End file.
